


Blueberry Kisses

by minxiebutt



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Genderfluid, Intersex, Other, Slow Build, rating for sexual content in chapter two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-10-26 04:19:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/minxiebutt
Summary: Mike takes a little lost cadet under his wing.or,Nanaba's origin story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The very fantastic stillmadaboutpetra allowed me to use elements of the world they built in their [Bite the Hand that Feeds](http://archiveofourown.org/series/497647) series, namely, the gender grouping of "thirds." Seriously, read their stuff!! Thank you again, Mad!!
> 
> Prompt: "mikenana, canonverse, first time <3" from the adorable [Molly](https://sugardaddyerwinsmith.tumblr.com)
> 
> Part 2 no later than June 1st!

Erwin has a deal struck with the bathhouse owner that allows the Survey Corp soldiers to utilise it after normal business hours without paying the door fee. Mike doesn't know the specifics of the deal, but it's something Commander Shadis took into consideration when promoting Erwin to Squad Leader, as well as many, many other things. Mike makes good use of the bathhouse like every soldier, but he prefers to wait until last. It's not so much about his rank and putting his subordinates first, even though that _is_ important to him-- he's learned through experience that the smell of so many different wet bodies in the same room does not bode well for his nose. Even when he's alone, the mingling scents all linger, but they're less potent, and he can deal with it.

 

It's a week after the latest batch of new cadets arrive that Mike begins to share the bath with another soldier. They're lithe and shy and stay as far from him as they can, and the next day, he sees their wild blonde curls tailing behind Squad Leader Johnna. Mike usually does not like to have someone encroaching-- it's an unspoken rule that if you don't get to the bathhouse before he enters, then you're shit out of luck-- but this cadet smells sweet like jams and jellies, so he doesn't mind.

 

“What's with your shy one?” Mike asks. He's swung up onto the landing platform beside Johnna, watching the cadets practice a maneuver that requires precision to keep lines uncrossed.

 

“The li’l northerner?” Johnna watches Mike’s eyes follow his target around the course. “Oh, ‘s Nanaba.”

 

They watch as cadets collide with wires crossed, the very soldier in question the only one swooping out unharmed.

 

Johnna chuckles. “Paws off me star rookie, Zacharias.”

 

It's not much later than that when a particularly busy night delays his wait at the bathhouse. Usually, Mike queues alone for the last soldier to exit, but today was exceptionally hot, and his turn is going to be later than usual. He stands on one side of the door, leaning against the bricks, arms folded across his chest, patient.

 

Nanaba is sitting at a bench across the road, their clean change of uniform held neatly in their arms, tracing something in the dirt with the tip of their boot.

 

“Oh, look,” Mike hears hushed from the bathhouse doorway as a pair of boys come out. “It's the abnormal.”

 

The boys gawk at Nanaba for a moment and when Nanaba looks up at them, they laugh to themselves, sharing crass slurs. Mike pays enough attention to them to remember that faces, but he's really watching Nanaba’s reaction, or lack of. After the laughter disappears down the road, the little blonde goes back to dragging designs into the dirt, waiting patiently, as if being outed in the streets is nothing new. The ease in which those boys made their remarks, Mike wonders.

 

He tracks down Johnna in the mess hall the next morning and sits at the table next to her.

 

“Your Nanaba’s a Third?” Mike asks quietly, keeping his question below the level of breakfast chatter.

 

“Not my secret to tell,” Johnna scolds. “Y’know better than t’ ask.”

 

“Not a secret when your other cadets are cracking jokes.”

 

Johnna rolls her eyes and sighs. “Tell me who, then.”

 

Mike can smell the horseshit on the two jokesters all next day, but it doesn't bother him as much as the scent of annoyance every time he's within range of Nanaba, who, curiously, looks at him like a traitor. They stalk up to him at the bath that night as he's scritching his hair, slamming their hands in the edge of the sand bucket and glaring. “Why did you say _anything_ to my Squad Leader?”

 

Mike respects the ire of the cadet and shrugs. It’s not that he expected their gratitude, but he definitely didn’t expect a confrontation. “It's bad for morale.”

 

Nanaba glares at him and then turns sharply on their heel, leaving. For the next few weeks, he can ignore the tension that they bring near him. There is two days’ back-to-back reconnaissance planned for next month, aiming to test the theory that titans travel in predictable paths toward the walls. It may help in getting further into unsettled country so that a secure outpost can be established within the next few years.

 

The first day is clear. All squads ride out after breakfast and return fully accounted for in time to eat a hot dinner. The second day makes up for it by decimating over a quarter of the expedition forces, wiping out the entire of Johnna’s squad, save for a single survivor. It turns out, Johnna’s star rookie fell two ten-meter titans by themselves, but only after a rush of adrenaline from watching their squadmates get eaten. On the way back to the Wall, Mike steers his gelding toward Nanaba and grafts them into his squad like a they are an orphan. In a way, they are now. When no other Squad Leader comes to challenge his claim the lone cadet, Commander Shadis nods at Mike, solidifying Nanaba’s new position under his wing. The last mile up to Wall Maria feels like a lifetime, but then they're through the gate and safe from titans, though the scrutiny of their fellow citizens can be just as deadly.

 

After sustaining such a loss, no one wants to show their face around the town. Instead of visiting the bathhouse to wash up with heated water, soldiers pump buckets of cold water at the well and rinse off, fully dressed, in the courtyard. It’s not thorough, but no one is looking too closely when the ghosts of their friends are hanging over their shoulders.

 

Aside from tea and lager, the mess is quiet. After a day like today, appetites are low. Most of the soldiers turn to their beds before sundown, meaning squad leaders make final nightly checks in the last vestiges of dusky sunlight for a change. Mike walks the end of the hallway reserved for his squad before going to check on the single occupant in what is formerly Johnna’s wing, finding the room with Nanaba’s name on the roster and knocking. Mike tells them that they'll be taking a bunk with the rest of his squad next week, and that he's looking forward to having them onboard. They shrug and do not speak.

 

Luckily for Mike, integrating them into his squad is not difficult. Nanaba takes praise the same way they take constructive criticism, with their head down and an acknowledging nod. Mike’s been in the Corps long enough to know they’re not listening-- not _really._ He knows the smell of guilt, can scent it even under Nanaba’s jams and jellies, lets them have it for a little while.

 

When he decides that he's seen them pout long enough, he approaches them at the bathhouse. For months, he's been respecting the distance between them, but he wants to talk with them, forge a better understanding.

 

Mike whistles once sharply, more bird song than horse call, as they walk in. When Nanaba glances in his direction, he catches their eyes and invites himself over.

 

“Take a seat.”

 

Nanaba looks up at him and then around the steamy room, a puzzled, “Squad Leader?”

 

“Mike,” he says, waving the title away. “Let me clean your hair.”

 

“Sir, I don't think it's necessary.” They're avoiding him, looking instead at the wall, and in the profile view of Nanaba’s face, Mike realises their nose tips upward at the point.

 

“It is. Sit.”

 

Despite the weak protest, Nanaba does as instructed, planting their bottom on the little stool. Mike pulls one up behind them and sits too, still towering over the smaller soldier easily. He can see that they're grasping the towel around their chest firmly. When he settles his knees on either of Nanaba’s sides, they jump and pinch their shoulders together as if his skin is poison. He's not offended.

 

“So, Nana.” Mike takes their bristle brush and starts at their crown. Long strokes, root to tip. Up close like this, he sees they have a haircut similar to his own under their curls. “How're you liking the south?”

 

“It's very warm, sir.”

 

“Just ‘Mike’, please. I've never been to the north. Tell me about it.”

 

Nanaba looks over their shoulder at him and he firmly takes hold of their head and turns them facing forward again. He pats the top of their head with a gentle “good” when they don't fight him again.

 

“It's less populated. More small villages scattered. More to eat. I'm from a small community called Dell Range, it’s the northmost district attached to Wall Maria.”

 

“They grow blueberries up that way, don't they?”

 

“Yes,” Nanaba says, sounding surprised that he might know that. “They do. My family farms them.”

 

“You smell like jam,” Mike blurts and immediately wishes to take it back. He doesn't make a habit of telling people their scents.

 

Nanaba only chuckles lowly while Mike tips their head down, chin to chest, so he can brush the back easily. Eventually, they say, “Yeah, that figures.”

 

He rubs the pads of his fingers over their scalp and then takes to their hair with a fine comb before rinsing it for them. After that, he leaves them in privacy to wash their body while he does the same, and then they meet again at the hot bath. Usually, the cadet gives Mike a wide berth, but tonight they sink into the steaming water right alongside him. He looks away as they do.

 

Mike makes a routine. Over the course of several weeks, he learns more about Nanaba in snippets as he fusses over their hair, and when they inquire of him, he answers short and to the point.

 

Seeing the body of another soldier has never really struck Mike as a wonder. They’re all, more or less, the same expanses of well-muscled titan fodder. But the night that Nanaba enters the washing area with their towel tied around their hips instead of their chest, Mike finds he can’t quite look away. Their face is slender and delicately boned like a woman’s, but they’re without breasts, small brown nipples on strong pectorals; yet also like a woman, there’s no trail of hair tucking into their navel from below the line of the towel, something a man of nearly twenty would have. Nanaba is a sight to behold, caught in the middle of two strictly defined sexes, fitting both a little yet neither completely.

 

Thirds come in all variety, the single defining feature that they are not of ‘standard’ anatomy according to the _important_ opinions of doctors in Sina. Some are identified at birth. Others, like Nanaba, are only identified at puberty.

 

They recount their shunning to him in vague but pained explanation one night. Isolated in the north like that, superstitions run rampant, the deadliest thing to be different than anyone else. When all the girls Nanaba’s age began to grow breasts and bleed, Nanaba didn’t, not even after several years, and after all the sisters younger than them came into womanhood and still they were left out, Nanaba was declared cursed and sent off to the factory city. There, they enlisted as ‘male’ at the age of sixteen.

 

“Whether or not I can _breed_ doesn’t change who I am,” they say. Their hair has long been clean, but they’re wilting between Mike’s knees, shoulders drooping, first thoracic vertebra a sharp pillar where their head hangs.

 

“You’re right,” Mike agrees softly. He’s never had to face something so paramount. He can’t speak from a place of kinship, but he can smell their tears, like salted cantaloupe on a summer’s day, and he knows Nanaba well enough to know they are naturally inclined for affection. Carefully, he wraps his arms around Nanaba’s shoulders to give them a brief squeeze, but they fall back against him and the intention to keep it brief is lost. He lets them take what they need from the embrace, letting them be the one to break it and pull away first with a clearing of their throat and embarrassedly wiping tears from their eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” they say as they sit up and turn, half facing him.

 

Mike shakes his head. “Nothing to be sorry for. Don’t apologise to me for who you are.”

 

“But I don’t know that,” Nanaba says, tucking in their chin again. “I don’t know what I am.”

 

“You’re not cursed.” Mike lets his nose drop until it brushes the arch of Nanaba’s ear. “If you want to be a woman, then be a woman. If you want to be a man, then be a man.”

 

Nanaba turns so that they face him completely and Mike drops his arms-- they’re still between his knees and it feels too intimate to keep his arms around them. “What if I’m both?”

 

“Then you’re both.” Mike shrugs. He’s not good with words and it seems like he’s oversimplifying this, brushing it off. “You’re whoever you are, Nana, and no matter what, you’re my soldier.”

 

They stare up at him, awestruck, before the flush conquers them and tears gather in the corners of their eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

 

“Just… call me Mike,” he manages. “When you need to come to me to talk outside of duty, I’m Mike.”

 

The smile that Nanaba gives him threatens to send his heart into his throat.

 

After Nanaba’s bathhouse catharsis, they blossom. The shy little cadet from six months ago spreads their wings and takes off, becoming more outgoing by the day. Mike remembers the wonder of watching cocooned caterpillars emerge bright and colourful, and he relives that sense of fascination as he watches Nanaba unfold from their self-isolation.

 

Squad maneuvers need adjusting not too long after that. By Nanaba opening themselves up to the quartet of soldiers, their sense of camaraderie is tighter and more interwoven, and it shows on the practice field.

 

“Nanaba,” Mike says at breakfast, taking a spot on the bench beside them. “Fly with me today.” He'll need a close inspection to accurately adjust. That's what he tells himself.

 

The cadet nods and glances over. Mike watches the way Nanaba’s eyes travel the peak of his roman nose to his moustache to his lips, and the attention makes his tongue dart out to wet them, entirely unbidden. Nanaba’s eyebrows raise, heightening the subtle downturn at the outer corners of their eyes, their own lips parting--

 

Mike brings a fist to his mouth and clears his throat. He's got to stop himself right there. This is his subordinate, and as their superior, it's his responsibility to keep any inappropriate expectations out of duty.

 

“You'll callus more permanently if you let the straps rub your skin,” Gelgar is telling Nanaba as they all gear up after breakfast. “We use the gear way more than in training camp.”

 

“You think it’ll work?” Nanaba asks, shedding their jacket and hanging it on a low branch.

 

Gelgar hangs his jacket beside theirs and lifts the corner of his shirt to show them. He points to the roughened skin along his hip. “Hurts like a bitch but once it's done, it's done. Never had another blister.”

 

Nanaba leans down to get a good look and Mike, standing behind them, tosses his head back too late. The vision of stretched white trousers is burned behind his eyelids.

 

Lynne, a girl from Nanaba’s training class, comes over to have a look, too, and then straightens. “I'll do it if you do it.”

 

Nanaba stands as well and nods. “Yeah. I'll do it.”

 

“Why did I do it?” Nanaba whines under Mike’s hands in the infirmary that afternoon. Lynne is on the opposite cot with a female medic stitching up the skin of her breast where her binder split the skin. Nanaba, who flew bare-chested because they look so absolutely male from the waist up, is weepy-blistered all along their torso.

 

Mike doesn't answer as he swabs a particularly bad spot on their shoulder blade with alcohol. They hiss and try to jerk away from him, but he's got his left hand planted firmly on the nape of their neck to scruff them into submission. “Be still.”

 

Nanaba grabs the edge of the cot and Mike tries to finish cleaning the raw flesh as quickly as he can, but he is not quick enough. Lynne receives her stitches and departs for bed, her steps heavily affected by sleeping tea.

 

“Mike,” Nanaba murmurs in the quiet. They're alone.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I…,” Nanaba pauses. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

 

He's not timid or shy or inexperienced, but in that moment, Mike can't deny the fluttering in his stomach. It feels like gnawing hunger.

 

When he doesn't respond, Nanaba begins to grow tense under his touch. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have--”

 

Mike relishes the way their muscles relax as his hands take hold of their upper arms, fingertips meeting. He slides his hands down until he reaches elbows, cupping, letting his thumbs circle the internal condyles. Just this morning, he was telling himself to keep his interest in check but here he is eight hours later burying his nose in Nanaba’s hair and inhaling their essence like he's never smelled anything sweeter. He's in full uniform while they're in nothing but trousers and boots, and even though he sees nearly their whole body in the bath, this feels so naked between them.

 

“Mike,” Nanaba murmurs again. Words a trickle and cautious. “Mike, I've been thinking about the other night. When I said I felt like both a woman and a man. And I… I want to tell you, when I change, I want you to know. I just….” They chew on a thought for a moment. “I just want you to know who I am.”

 

“I'd like that,” he answers quietly before the realisation makes itself known fully. “Thank you, Nana.”

 

Nanaba’s missing tops are still in the forest somewhere, so Mike drapes his monstrous jacket over their shoulders so that he can walk them down to their room.

 

Gelgar, looking a little remorseful, finds Mike at mess that evening with two identical jackets in his hands. “Squad Leader, I didn't know whose was whose.”

 

Mike takes them, unthinking, and brings one to his nose-- blueberry jam. “This is Nanaba’s,” he says, holding the jacket up. Gelgar dismisses himself to return the articles and after he goes, Mike wipes his hand down his face in exasperation. He's going to end up in trouble.

 

Lynne is grounded until her stitches can be removed and Mike has half a mind to order Nanaba into the same, but he refrains. Having one member out is messing up operations enough. Instead, he takes mercy on Nanaba and lets them spend a good portion of the days observing maneuvers beside him. Nanaba’s scabs fall away around the same time that Lynne’s stitches are removed, so they fly again. Gelgar is right-- no new blisters mottle Nana every night. Their skin darkens and raises like living leather and he traces it mindlessly at the bath.

 

Nanaba drops onto the tree branch where Mike is observing when he remembers again. Reaching over, he pulls up the collar of their jacket and turns it down, finding it still blank.

 

“Stitch your name in, cadet,” he says around a lump in his throat. He's seen soldiers torn to unidentifiable pieces, a jacket the only surviving item for grieving families. Even if he's not so sure their family would want it, _someone_ would grieve them.

 

Mike is not a man to blush, but his face is hot fire at supper a couple weeks later. His squad is already seated and eating when he catches up to them, and he checks Nanaba’s collar after taking the end of the bench next to them, pleased to find his order followed. But there's twigs and grass caught in their hair and before he can stop himself, he picks out the little invaders.

 

Their hair needs a good brushing tonight. The large curls have fallen flat but not frizzed, knotted where he pulls out debris, and he cards his hand through it thoughtlessly.

 

“Squad Leader?” Nanaba chokes and it brings him back to reality, to dinner, to several sets of curious eyes watching him, bowls of soup raised to hide expressions.

 

The heat in his face stuns him but he keeps his cool. He's been in worse situations. Large fingers slip through Nanaba’s knots a couple more times before he's content to smooth their hair down like he’s in control of himself.

 

“There was a twig,” he answers when he trusts his voice again.

 

Mike tells himself that it won't happen again, this kind of slip-up, but of course it does. On the practice field. In the mess. At bed checks. His hands know no boundaries when it comes to Nanaba, but they look at him with softly pleading eyes and he's lost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, nan's gonna be switching pronouns in this a lot because they're genderfluid, so i hope that the way i've written it is okay! if not, please don't hesitate to drop a comment!! xxx

  
  


When Squad Leader Smith pulls a special operations unit to go to the Sina Underground, Mike is chosen to go. He addresses his squad as a whole before he leaves, avoiding Nana almost pointedly, offering no significant parting words.

 

Perhaps Nanaba means nothing special to Mike and perhaps Lynne is right, that Nana draws in sympathy with the subtle downturn in the corners of his eyes, his neutral expression portraying a sadness that isn’t necessarily present. It’s entirely possible that Mike’s attentions to him are purely out of concern for his soldier, and that Nana is obsessing over him unhealthily because of his kindness and affection. Still, those hands of Mike’s, so large just like the rest of him, went from overwhelming to insufficient in a span of time that frightens Nanaba. He can't decide if the fluttering in his chest is because Mike is feeding his hunger for kindness or if it's more genuine.

    

Nana remembers the hot-blooded excitement of kissing boys behind the berry bushes, back when _he_ went exclusively by _she_ and the possibility of _third_ was far from mind. Nanaba’s first kiss was years ago now, when he was twelve, right before the rumours surfaced that he was cursed, and sometimes when Mike gives him a touch, he yearns with every bone in his body. Nanaba spends too much time wondering what it would be like to kiss him and be kissed by him. He wonders how the whiskers of Mike’s beard would feel on all of his secret places, and how hot Mike’s hands would be if he weren't using them to clean Nana’s hair so innocently. Mike is, undeniably, a _man_ and solidly so. The sheer _bulk_ of him, oxen-strong and golden brown like egg-washed bread, cut muscles that ripple and glisten at the bath, only a towel around his waist, thick and sloping appealingly to things out of sight.

 

The week that Mike is gone, Nana mulls over his predicament endlessly, until a fit of wet desperation allows him to label his feelings for Mike as lust. Skipping the bath, skipping dinner, he goes back to his shared bunkroom to relish the rare privacy. Nana falls into his bed, his knees pressing together and quivers wriggling through his gut, intent on quenching the fire in his blood. A quick switch of the hips and Nana loosens his trousers just enough to slip his hand in, flops himself on his front and buries his face in his bedsheets with a loud moan.

 

Nana’s seen the outline of Mike’s cock on several occasions, sought it out with naughty appreciation, and he guesses that eventually working himself open on four fingers should be enough. _Wall Maria,_ he doesn't touch himself like this nearly enough, hooking his two longest fingers up and into the slick warmth of his cunt, stroking at the anterior while grinding his palm against his clit, working himself wider with the sinfully misused images of Mike behind his eyelids. He’s so pent up that he cums within a minute.

 

On the drop after his orgasm, Nana is faced with the stark reality of why he doesn’t masturbate often. Unbidden and almost immovable, Jonas comes to mind, Jonas wrist deep between his legs behind the barns at night, sweet whispers, _“I’ll make you my wife one day, Nana.”_

 

He wipes his fingers on the inside of his shirt and grinds his teeth, forcing Jonas’ sweetness away with his final memory of him, standing in the crowd silently, watching Nana’s father take her long blonde braid and cut it off, publically shaming her, disowning her, and sending her away. For all of Jonas’ whispered promises about taking Nanaba and building a future for them, he’d been terribly, finitely silent when it mattered most.

  
  
  
  
  


“Cadet.”

 

On the ninth evening, Nana stops at the call, a shiver of guilt running down her spine. She turns slowly, the same fingers she was about to shove inside herself curled in a fist over her heart, to face the man that she had fantasised about every night in his absence. “Squad Leader.”

 

Mike is taking long strides down the corridor and when he approaches, he cups a hand over her collarbone, squeezing tighter than necessary, and then his hand slides down to cover her salute and lower it. Just like that, all of her self-doubt evaporates, because this kind of contact is not typical between officer and subordinate. An invasive snarl comes, _he gives you special attention because you’re pitiful,_ but Nanaba mentally swats it away.

 

“At ease,” he says, but he doesn’t release her hand. His thumb is skating over her knuckles. “Gelgar says you’ve been missing dinner. Is everything alright?”

 

That she doesn’t blush and squirm under his fixed gaze is a miracle. “Yes, sir.”

 

“Come on, then.” Mike’s still got on his green travel cloak, and when he tugs her hand toward him, it slips into the warmth of the cloak and brushes his thigh. They’re alone in the corridor, but it feels extremely secret as Mike threads their fingers together there, further from view should another soldier be making their way to meal. His palm is hot and sweaty against hers, and she finally does squirm with a rush of dampness between her legs when she imagines what their bodies would look like in similar fashion.

 

Mike’s nostrils flare once and beneath his bangs, his eyebrows raise. The supreme olfaction that the squad leader possesses is well known among the Survey Corps, and Nanaba feels found out. She drops her head. _Oh, Walls, he knows, he knows, he knows._

 

“Cadet,” he begins, like he wants to ask something, but stops, thinking better of it. There’s mild amusement in his gait, not disgust as she expected, and he keeps their hands together all the way until they’re tabled with the rest of the squad.

 

Mike sits her down on the bench with firm hands kneading her shoulders, showing off.

  
  
  
  
  


“Alright, show me,” Lynne says in the female communal bath in the barracks. They've pumped their own well water for tonight, two large buckets sitting side by side on the tiles on either side of the drain and sand bin.

 

Nana undoes the towel around her chest and holds it open, displaying her nakedness. In no way is she ashamed of it, despite its anomalies, and she'd come to Lynne with concerns that required intimacy.

 

Lynne looks at Nanaba’s blonde curls between her legs and then matches her friend’s level of undress by shedding her own towel. Unlike Nana’s, Lynne’s hair is trimmed extremely short, and the lips of her sex are visible under the low cover.

 

“When you bleed,” Lynne says, taking one of Nana’s hands and swirling it in the water to clean it before spreading her legs and guiding Nana’s middle finger inside. “The mouth to your womb, the cervix, opens. Can you feel something like lips?”

 

Nanaba sweeps her finger in deep and wide and finds what Lynne describes. It's hard and puckered, like it’s expectantly pursed and poised for a kiss, something Nana is unfamiliar with.

 

“You seriously don't have one?” Lynne lays one of her hands over Nanaba’s opening while there's still a finger in her own warmth, and when Nana gives her permission, Lynne pushes it in, so that they both have the other inside them. Lynne searches for her cervix and finds it missing, to some small amount of relief. Without a womb, she'll never fall pregnant.  

 

“Lucky,” Lynne says like a fond curse. “Does the rest of it work?” As she asks, she flicks her thumb over Nanaba’s clit and the blonde squawks suddenly, undignified.

 

After the embarrassment fades, she asks, “Does it hurt to bleed? Everyone always makes it look so painful.”

 

“Fuck, yeah. Luckily I don't bleed often, only every couple months.” Lynne wiggles her hips invitingly. “So did you get a lot of action being in the boys’ dorm at training, eh?”

 

Nana shakes her head, a little amused. “I was still in love with a boy back home.”

 

Lynne’s eyes widen, apparently unbothered that Nanaba has a finger still in her cunt. “Really? Tell me about him.”

 

“His name is Jonas and he's a coward,” Nana spits with more venom than she intended. She takes her hand away and rinses it off again.

 

“Well, no one needs a coward.” And that's all there is to him. Lynne is still exploring Nana’s anatomy with thorough ministrations, but Nana finds herself decidedly unaroused by the wandering and its clinical nature.

 

Eventually, Lynne asks, “You know who isn't a coward? Mike.”

 

Nanaba’s reaction is purely reflexive, and Lynne gives her an open mouth grin when Nana’s sex tightens around her. “Oh, you little _scamp!”_

 

Nanaba covers her face with her hands. “Lynne!”

  
  
  
  
  


The thug trio that Erwin Smith drags back from the Sina Underground steals a lot of Mike’s attention. Nana doesn’t know if Erwin asked him to watch his back, but Mike is one of his few remaining childhood friends, so it seems like a natural course of action. To compensate for absences, Mike and Erwin combine squads. There will be a foray in a month, and having a large flank comfortable with working together will be beneficial.

 

It minimises the casualties in their teams while on expedition, but Death taxes another section to compensate for their success. Gelgar assists Nana in a kill and Lynne makes her first solo kill, but the abnormal that scatters their flank, sending everyone into frenzy, bolts off before anyone can make the kill, Mike close on its tail and Erwin nowhere in sight.

 

Commander Shadis collects them in the retreat, and only when the Wall comes into sight are all surviving members of the foray accounted for. Mike rejoins his squad then, a grim but grateful smile that they've managed, in his absence, to stay alive when so many others could not.

 

Gelgar takes to the mess hall with whiskey enough to kill a man, and Nana joins in after he sees Lynne to bed. She’d been too shaky to eat, so he’d left a bread roll wrapped in clothe next to her candle for when the hunger finally hit.

 

As the drunkenness loosens his tongue, Gelgar tells Nana of his hometown. He’s got no long-lost lover, but his mother lives alone, and he is really needing to visit her. The first week after expeditions are low-lying, officers tied up with rearranging squads to replace the newly dead, and enlistees usually home to gather their wits about them. Gelgar is from the West, along Rose, and he will seek permission in the morning to depart.

 

Gelgar is in the middle of sharing his mother’s mince pie recipe when he stops and stares, agape.  At first, Nanaba thinks it is drunken dumbness, but when he turns to look, he understands.

 

Squad Leader Erwin strides through the corridor that passes through the back end of the mess hall, sure and steadfast and straight-backed as always, but behind him, head down and fists at his side, is Levi.

 

“Huh. Guess seein’ Titans made ‘im realise,” Gelgar slurs quietly. “Was ‘bout ready to kill Erwin the ‘ole time he's been ‘ere.”

 

“Why?”

 

Gelgar shrugs. “Wild animals ‘ren’t meant to be kept.”

 

They finish drinking when the soldiers on mess duty shoo them out.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Squads Smith and Zacharias split up again, both taking on the orphaned cadets of ruined teams. They practice basic maneuvers and then move into the more advanced ones, taking breaks to critique form and method at the picnic tables. During one of these breaks, Mike leans over Nana to address the squad, his fist beside theirs on the scratchy wood, and their mind flashes with an inappropriate scene.

 

When Lynne elbows them after bed checks and asks what the red face was about, Nana comes clean: they had imagined being bent over the table, bracing themselves against the edge of it, Mike’s large fingers laced between their own in passion. Lynne whistles and smiles and gives Nana a gentle kiss on the shoulder.

  
  
  
  
  


A few weeks later, Mike brings a parcel by at bed checks. Nanaba looks at it curiously when Mike places it in his hands, and when he reads the return address, he tenses. Mike grasps the curve of his shoulder where it meets neck, exactly where Lynne has developed a habit of nuzzling, to say, “You can come to me if you need to talk.”

 

Nanaba can only nod numbly, and then remembers himself, offers a pathetic and shaky salute that Mike cups his massive grip over and squeezes.

 

“At ease,” he murmurs with a kind of tenderness that brings comfort. “My door is open tonight.”

 

Nanaba turns into his own room without any further words. Somehow, he waits until his bunkmates have all begun to snore, and he carefully undoes the brown paper. Underneath is a well made leather satchel with his family’s emblem burned into the front of it, a bag meant for heavy weights, the stitching tight and sturdy. Nana undoes the buckles on the front with shaking fingers, his stomach sinking low in his gut until he feels he might shit himself, and then he’s met with a rush of nostalgic scents.

 

Inside the satchel are two dozen little boxes of bar soap, each labelled according to aromatic properties. Some are predictable: blueberry, pear, persimmon, lavender. Others, like apple and plum, take him aback. Jonas’s family has expanded on their craft in the four years that Nana has been gone.

 

There’s a sleuth seam inside the satchel for items that require hiding, and Nana finds it because it is overstuffed with a large wad of papers-- a letter, he realises. He flips to the final page to find the author and swallows. It’s his mother.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Nana had folded the letter and set it under his pillow before going to knock on his squad leader’s door. Mike went through all the trouble to coax his fireplace into the task of boiling water for tea and pressing a cup into Nanaba’s hands, only for the cadet to jump up, his nervous frenzy overtaking him.

 

“You owe me no explanation, Nana.” Mike’s words chase him out of the door and Nana tries to wrap himself in them as he tosses and turns all night.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Sometime between the wake-up bell and breakfast, Nanaba brings himself to read what news his mother brings. She starts off by informing Nana that a plague of fever had swept through the region, leading to a doctor residing in their village permanently, to be able to tend to families in the mountains. The plague had been spread through the meat of livestock, and Nana’s father had succumbed. As part of the effort to minimise the spread further, he had been burned on the pyre along with several dozen others. Without a head to their household, all of Nana’s sisters had been married off quickly, and his mother took to widowhood graciously until the fellmonger two towns over, his own wife lost to the plague, offered her a marriage of convenience, companionship, and safety.

 

The leather satchel is a gift to Nanaba, but also an offer. Should Nana choose, his mother will allow him to come back home, far away from the dangers of expeditions and titans and sky high mortality rates, to live a quiet life and marry. But there is no one Nana thinks of as worthwhile, not anymore, not when Jonas has prepared the soaps as a peace offering upon marrying Nana’s baby sister, Margot.

 

And that is when he realises his place is not back home. There is no empty slot for him to fill. He is four years removed from that life.

  
  
  
  
  


Nanaba sends correspondence to his mother a week later, thanking her and her new husband, but electing to remain in active duty. He gives no reason. Margot’s happiness means more to him than soothing his hurt with vengeful words.

  
  
  
  
  


Mike gives her a wide berth after the parcel incident, but Nana’s third expedition makes her seek him out.

 

Gelgar cuts her from the jaw of a titan and catches her, the mangled gear on her hips misfiring, a sure death had it not been for him. She rides back on Gelgar’s horse with his arms on the reins around her, slamming his fist onto her thigh when she begins to sway like she’s going to fall from the mount. Inside the safety of Maria, there is regrouping, and Mike settles her onto his mammoth gelding while he chooses to walk at its side, guiding, despite his limp.

 

Spirits are higher than usual as soldiers rinse off in the courtyard. Erwin’s pet project is a pragmatic machine, lightning quick in the gear with his heavy body. There’s murmuring that he slaughtered a dozen titans at once, a blur passing between napes and leaving a smoldering cloud in his wake. For once, they lost more horses than riders.

 

Gelgar, already half a bottle down, slams into Nanaba when she finds him in the mess again. He hugs her tightly, more than she can bare with bruised bones, but she allows him to have it. “You’re my closest friend, Nana. I was so scared, I was so scared to lose you.”

 

“I’m alive because of you,” she says, squeezing him back, intending to stay for as many drinks as he will share. “Gelgar, thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  


Mike takes her to the infirmary the next morning and strips her down himself, acknowledging her wounds with the press of his lips. It’s a day late and he reopens scabbing skin to apply salve of goldenrod; justifies it by telling her that he can smell the brewing infections. “Meaty, not fruity. Doesn’t belong.”

 

There’s a deep burn where titan saliva sat for too long, and when Mike cleans it and kisses it, she whispers to him, “Can I bathe in your room tonight?” She can’t use the bath house with open skin and there’s lingering titan blood on the air around her.

 

“Tonight,” he promises, yielding without question. “I’ll boil water.”

  
  
  
  
  


Nanaba’s head swims with the steam and they don’t know what drives them to it. They sit in the washing tub in front of Mike’s fire, Mike on a stool behind them, working the knots from yesterday’s horseriding out of Nanaba’s hair. One minute, Mike is parting their hair into sections, and the next, Nanaba seizes his hand between theirs and drags it down their body to their belly.

 

Mike is low, chin whiskers brushing her shoulders. “Nana?”

 

“I had a lover,” she blurts, “in my hometown. He married my sister. They’re expecting a child soon. I’ve been asked to name it.”

 

Mike is quiet and he comes closer, embracing her so that his hands meet over her womblessness. The touch and the understanding in his silence, it makes her small. She said herself that it didn’t matter if she could breed, but somehow there is longing inside her that she should be in Margot’s position.

 

Finally, Mike says, “Usually that’s the highest honour. Don’t want it?”

 

Nanaba shakes her head.

 

“Wanted it to be you?”

 

She nods. He holds her tighter.

  
  
  
  
  


Margot’s baby comes, a girl. After a fortnight, Mike rides with Nanaba to Dell Range for the christening, a lamb is slaughtered in honour of little Amelia. The baby likes to be cradled against chest, head resting on the shoulder, and she sleeps especially easily on Nanaba. The last time that Nana holds Amelia, Mike comes and takes a sniff, tells her that Amelia smells of sweet potatoes mashed with cream and butter, and then in front of everyone, he kisses Nana on the top of her head.

  
  
  


Jonas happens to take Margot and Amelia with him to Sina for a vendor faire the day that Maria falls and Nana thanks the gods above for it.

  
  
  
  


Expeditions increase, aided by the Garrison. Gelgar drinks. Henning spaces. Lynne retreats in on herself. Nana petrifies. Mike breathes life back into them like a sorcerer, fills them with his own will and resolve until they can muster it for themselves. The rushing of war heightens emotions but there is no time to process them before the Reclamation.

 

There is no goods shortage, only greed. And two-hundred thousand pay in blood.

 

Even a week after their defeated return, safe inside Rose, Nana hears it. Each crunch of bone a coin in a wealthy man’s purse and it makes them sick. They cannot stand the sight or smell of meat. Hot water is too much like titan’s blood. They bathe with a bucket and scrub too hard.

 

Mike opens his door whenever they knock weakly, and after a few times, he begins to take Nana to his room at bed checks, takes their hand and leads them to his bed and lays part of his weight on them so they truly sleep. And slowly, meat becomes tolerable, bathing in boiled water at the fireside under Mike’s hands, it all resumes.

 

The Reclamation effort exhausts the Survey Corps so heavily that drafts from the Garrison are brought in. They’re less apt with their gear but it’s nothing that a few months of special practices doesn’t fix. In that time, expeditions are on hold, and Nanaba uses the peace to craft a new normalcy after the horrors. They shift closer to Mike and Mike allows it. Youthful lust is replaced with appreciation, a deeper bond, better understanding. The last two years in the Corps have been a run through the fire, the beating hammer, the water. Nanaba feels like a well-made blade now.

 

Squad Leader Smith is appointed as the thirteenth commander, Mike as his right hand. The compulsory feast is hosted by the King in the capitol, but Nana slips away early, the rich food too much for his stomach to handle. Gelgar loops his arm over Nanaba’s shoulders to try and get him to stay and drink, but Nanaba declines.

 

Their inn is a ways off, but whenever the palace is alive, so are the streets, and Nanaba feels no threat. He gets back to his shared room only to hear moans on the other side of the door.

 

Mike’s room is a few doors down. Nanaba uses the stealthily swiped key to enter, sheds his dress uniform, and crawls into bed with an aching belly but does not sleep. The sheets smell familiar but there is not weight atop him and his mind wanders, ungrounded, and he invokes sleep desperately. He’s in a hazy dance when the doorknob rattles resistantly, followed by a twist of the lock. Lightened, paced steps. The rustling of fabric and the clinking of war medals. Warm skin slides along his own and Mike says, “You captivated.”

 

Nana only hums, all too aware of the sheer number of eyes on him all night. Fingertips feel out his face and then Mike’s lips are on his forehead, his nose, his cheek. And hands sweep over the field of his body like cartographers. And there’s a press of Mike’s mouth to the corner of his own and it makes him gasp against the stomach in his throat.

 

“You captivated,” Mike says again, then, “Let me kiss you?”

 

Nana doesn’t give permission. He takes Mike’s interest and strangles him with it, grabbing Mike’s chin and biting his way into the man’s mouth without mercy. Mike opens.

  
  
  
  


Nanaba is fraught with worry, however, that the night in Sina will mean _nothing_ when they reach the outpost again, and that worry causes them to push Mike away. Still, he follows. It’s a game. He meets them step for step, never coming too close without permission, letting Nana have the power. They continue to come to his bed, take his weight for a grounded sleep, let him worship with his hands on their skin, they let him kiss. Nanaba isn’t sure of the rules to this game that they’ve created but Mike waits for them, looks to them to keep score, until the night Nanaba calls match.

 

His name gets caught in the back of their throat, but when Nanaba looks down between their bodies and watches the way his cock disappears between their legs over and over, they manage a shaky whine of, “You're inside me.”

 

Mike doesn't chuckle or say anything witty. Instead, his tone is wondrously astonished when he reassures them, “I am.”

 

Nanaba loops their arms around his neck and watches for several awestruck moments as Mike’s cock reappears and disappears from view, the way their bodies align, their nests of coarse hairs meeting, Nana’s blonde against Mike’s brown. Not knowing what else to say, Nanaba repeats the phrase again, thankfully met with the same reassurance each time until a snap of hips forces a truly pathetic whimper from their mouth.

 

 _“Shhh,_ baby,” Mike croons, low in their ear. “Close your eyes, moan for me.”

 

Nanaba, before obeying, meets Mike’s gaze and nods. He looks so reverent above them, like he's watching something truly marvellous. They let their eyes fall shut and then squeeze them when Mike’s movement wrenches a bolt of pleasure from their belly.

 

A man his size should not be able to climb from bed so weightlessly when Nanaba isn’t even sure if they still have legs or not. He brings them water and helps them drink, attentive to needs unspoken, and when he’s holding them later that night, oblivion creeping in, he says their kisses taste of blueberry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two by june 1st MY ASS

**Author's Note:**

> i really wanted to wait and write the whole thing and post it in one go, but i really needed to get this off my chest.
> 
> thank you for reading~


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